Words Fail

Tag Archives: cool

There were a couple interesting shots on my last roll, including a couple decent but not mind blowing bee pictures, some vast sweeping vistas, majestic trees, weirdly blue skies beside ominous silver clouds, lines of distant storms on the horizon, things of that nature. But this seems to be the most striking image. It’s a yucca flower, into which the ants have cut their own ant-size door for nefarious ant purposes. Took a couple good shots of ants on other blossoms slipping in and out between the edges of the petals, but this bud must have been especially tasty, because the ants just couldn’t bother with all that mucking about between layers. They just went straight for the core, like a mad scientist with a mole machine. Ants are pretty interesting.

I messed around with the contrast and such in Photoshop just to really bring out as many details as possible. I’ve taken a lot of pictures of yucca flowers, which grow in great, beautiful clusters, but they don’t seem to really stand out in pictures. I guess that’s true of most white flowers. Maybe if you put them against a black background.

Also found a couple recently deceased figeater beetles. These are large bugs with splendid iridescent green shells. I wanted to say “carapaces,” but Google told me that carapaces aren’t associated with beetles, and only refer to the top part of the shell, whereas the figeaters are more resplendent on their undersides, for some reason. Will try to figure out how best to capture their visual essence.

Had two positive, encouraging, useful interactions with great writers today. That’s always nice. They both have suggestions for things I must do to be more successful, on top of the list of things the Rabbit has already told me I have to do to be more successful. The Fox cancelled our Tuesday writing meetup due to an in-law situation which required his emotional support, but Misses Kitty came over instead and persuaded me to make her brownies. I tried to invent a new sugar-free, gluten-free brownie recipe and instead invented a new sugar-free, gluten free chocolate cake recipe. It’s pretty good. You’d never guess it was sugar-free or gluten free.

It’s not even midnight. I promised to create a logo for someone, which will benefit me in the long run, so even if it’s not necessary an integral part of the list of thing I must do to be more successful, it’s still a thing I should day. And I guess every time you succeed at something, you are more successful.

ETA: Redditor blacksheep998 seems to think that this door is too big for ants and that it is actually a bumblebee door.

Remember how, when you were a kid, you couldn’t wait to be an adult because adults could do anything they wanted to do?

1) I’m the health nut who loads the fridge up with fruits and vegetables and then gets all annoyed when there isn’t any cake in there, even though I can’t really eat any amount of cake without making myself sick.

2) Even when I worked out miles from my house, I still recognized the irony of driving to the gym. The Man and I are considering membership at a gym 1 block away. I’m curious as to whether he’ll want to drive there.

3) It’s perplexing that my stepkids have yet to find their father or me mortifyingly embarrassing. They still hug and kiss us, even in public. I don’t know what I have to do to fill these children with the shame that comes from thinking other kids are judging you based on your parents’ weirdness, and we are pretty weird.

4) My parents wanted me to be a doctor. Pretty much nobody’s parents want them to be an artist. Definitely nobody’s parents gaze lovingly into the crib and say, “One day, she could draw webcomics!”

5) How do lawyers and judges even work? The few times I’ve been in court I just wanted to scream and break things and punch a cop. I mean, I know they get recess and all, but I’ve never seen a playground at the courthouse. I’d rather stare at a wall than work in a courthouse.

My thoughts on the magnificent corvid being well-documented, there is not much more to say about this shirt other than it’s adorable, almost as adorable as this kid. Especially adorable on this kid.

I took another stab at using Photoshop to color correct an image today. It didn’t come out bad, except that somehow I managed to make a tree in the background look completely fake, and by the time I even noticed, it was too late to undo it, so I had to go down to the pixels and fix it up by hand. As this was only my second attempt, we can call it a qualified success. Will continue to learn.

Cool Clothes. And a Beard brings together some of the Internet’s most endearing nonsense: 3 wolf moon, nyan cat, international bearding competition winners, and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top.

The Machine

It’s a water heater! It’s a wankel rotary engine! It’s a solar panel! It’s…The Machine. Fuel your machine with this inexplicable contraction on a coffee cup, or advertise the fact that you’re a no-nonsense machine by wearing a ridiculous T-shirt.

Dragon and Owl Painting in the Desert

Creative minds need to find creative ways to pass the time while they’re waiting for the world to recognize their sublime artistic genius. Join Dragon and Own Painting in the Desert and keep your creativity well-fed with tea and pebber nodder

Whatever You Need for Comic Effect

If your sofa needs a little random insanity, Whatever You Need for Comic Effect is available on a pillow. Who needs a bag of many things when you have a magic cave? Carmen Miranda hat, fun size trebuchet, or wearable triceratops head, it’s all within easy reach.

On our recent sojourn through Arizona, we met a lot of friendly dogs. Johnny was the first of many canids to make our acquaintance on this trip. As we drove up onto the beach at Roosevelt Lake, Johnny was desperately trying to interest his human in a rousing game of fetch. His human was participating half-heartedly while trying to get his paddleboard gear organized. As soon as he saw us, Johnny came running down the beach, ball in mouth, to determine whether we would be his new best friends.

After we spent 45 minutes repeatedly heaving object into the lake for Johnny to joyously chase, catch, and return, his human called him over. Johnny jumped up onto the paddleboard and floated off with his human as I snapped the source image for this digital painting.

Johnny the paddleboarding dog in sticker form.

The original and the prints would be in a much higher resolution. It’s a small design, so some of the details are lost in a screenshot of this low res image. However, I’m pretty pleased with it, although it is little.

The reason there haven’t been any new T-shirts in the shop lately is that I started a large digital painting of a peacock a couple months ago. I’ve probably spent more than 30 hours on it so far, and it’s probably 1/3 of the way done! (In comparison, Johnny took me about 2 hours.) I’m sort of bummed out because there was another T-shirt design that I started a while ago and really wanted online before Friday, but that’s not going to happen. So it’s nice to add Johnny to the gallery. I will probably add a couple dragon panels this week, too, but we’ll see. I’m still sick and now my mom’s here.